*sigh*

[thewayne]

A bit of a story. And you know I like telling stories!

In the past, I was using an Alamogordo tire shop to get the oil changes on our two cars done. Then they did one thing that ticked me off, and a second thing that utterly [EXPLETIVE DELETED] me off, so I stopped using them. The first was they used the wrong wrench type to tighten the plug on Russet's car's oil pan, which damaged the threads. It took them absolutely forever to get a correct replacement.

The second was they accidentally drained some transmission fluid from my car, thinking it was the oil fill. This was my 2015 Subaru Crosstrek. The transmission is sealed: you cannot manually add tranny fluid to it without a computer. Which they did not have. I made them bring up a mechanic with the computer from El Paso the next day to service it properly. But what really made me mad was no apology, no discount on the oil change.

So that was it for them. They had another long-standing strike against them regarding some snow tires that I wanted, so that was actually three strikes. Back prior to 2015 I had a Toyota Matrix, good car. All-wheel drive, and I knew I was going to need snow tires. I asked them for a recommendation, and they said and they said "Buy THESE tires!" The time came when snow season was proverbially around the corner and it was time to order new tires. But I decided to do a little online research before calling them to order them. And review after review said 'DO NOT buy THESE tires - they are horrible in snow and mud!' I ended up calling a tire shop in Ruidoso - they're at an elevation of approx 7,500' and told them what I needed, and he said 'Buy THESE OTHER tires, I equip the Ruidoso Downs Police Department with them and they're very happy.' I told him okay, let me do a little internet digging, and I'll call you back. Review after review were along the lines of 'I'm a first responder, and THESE OTHER tires are so incredible that I've equipped every car in my family with them!' After I got THESE OTHER tires on my car, after our first decent snow there was maybe 4-5" of snow on the ground and we decided to go down the mountain for dinner. I had Russet drive my car, and we took the long way out of the village. She very quickly remarked 'These are really good tires!' I ended up buying two sets of tires from them. I now get tires from another place in Alamogordo and have been very satisfied, but all they do for me is tires.

ANYWAY....

Started using another place for oil changes, I'd used them before and they'd been consistently good, and they continued to be good. For whatever reason the site they were in kicked them out, or they went out of business, I don't know what. The guy moved to another location which felt kinda skeevy. I needed new brake pads done all-around: the rears didn't really need 'em, but they were down over half-way, so I figured why not. After I got home, I found out that two or three of my lug nuts had been replaced! I have aluminum rims, it was quite obvious. The factory lug nuts were nice chrome dome caps, these replacements were standard nuts where the remainder of the bolt was exposed.

So that was it for him.

I started using the Toyota dealership since basically an oil change is an oil change, and as long as they used the right filter and weight of oil, it was fine. No worries there.

While driving to/from Las Cruces, I noticed a new oil change place next to the interstate. I looked them up, and they're a nationwide chain that's a drive-up and you stay in your car. I decided to try them, and I've been pretty happy. They give us a fleet discount on our cars since we work for the university, which is cool, and they're going to build a location in Alamogordo - eventually. I know where it's going - I thought, could be a second site that's now under prep - we'll see how soon it opens.

ANYWAY, they do a variety of services. Engine air filters, cabin air filters, wiper blades, tranny fluid, differential fluid, and probably some others of which I'm not aware. Last change, perhaps a month ago, they offered to do the differentials on my Crosstrek, now ten years old with 170,000+ miles on it. In my brain I did an 'OOPS! Shoulda done that a long time ago!' So I had it done. And they showed me the drain plug which has a magnet embedded in it to act as a trap for metal shavings that are kind of a normal thing when you have metal-on-metal contact.

Not long after that, I started hearing a speed-dependent whine from my car. Not a good thing. Speed goes up, whine pitch goes up. No other symptoms: no acceleration hesitation, RPMs are steady, speed is steady, mileage is nominal.

On October 11, I'm heading for Phoenix. I'm probably going to be driving approximately 1,200 miles round-trip on this little jaunt. And I wanted to know what's going on before I hit the road. Today I took my car to Firestone. I figured the probable suspect was that the oil change shop didn't tighten the differential drain plug sufficiently and it was low on fluid.

I was wrong. It's the transmission.

It's a continuously-variable tranny, a CVT. For the most part, Subaru doesn't do conventional manual transmissions anymore, most car makers are moving to CVTs as they're more fuel efficient. (Yes, I can drive a stick, no problem. I've owned three cars with sticks, and driven two of Russet's with manual transmissions.) Anyway, the guys at Firestone took my car for a test drive and heard the noise, but being much more experienced and trained mechanics, decided to test the transmission, and found that it was shifting late. Like when it should have been shifting at around 2,500 RPM, it was shifting at around 4,300.

Not good.

So Russet's car, having just gotten back from a jaunt to Phoenix then on to Las Vegas and back, is returning to Phoenix next week. It changes my planning a bit as I was needing to get a different repair done on my car, and also wanted to get the seats shampooed or maybe the entire interior detailed. Clearly that's not going to happen. The Firestone manager gave me the name of an excellent transmission guy in Las Cruces who has the needed equipment to diagnose and repair CVTs and is really good at them - and specifically has worked on Subaru CVTs before! - I'll be calling him Monday. The Firestone manager said that as far as he'd heard, transmission repairs took about four days, there's no way we can accommodate that before I leave, so it'll probably be late October before we can get my car serviced properly and we'll have to hope for the best. It's not going to be cheap: I've never had to deal with a transmission problem, this will be my first major repair on a car, basically since forever!

But the best thing? FIRESTONE DIDN'T CHARGE ME ANYTHING! They don't do transmission work beyond changing fluid and filters, and what I need is far beyond that. The manager said that they could go ahead and do another flush and fill on the differential, but it wasn't needed, so they weren't charging me for the diagnostics.

I was a very happy customer leaving there. I've used Firestone a lot in the decades that I've been driving, I'm particularly fond of their lifetime alignment and have used that often. Needless to say I shall be going on Yelp and Google to leave five-star reviews for the place.

But Monday and Thursday, I'll be cleaning up Russet's car and my car so hers is ready for me to drive and mine is ready for her to drive.

And after mine is fixed up after I get back, then I'll have to set up the other repair that I need, and the seat shampoo/detailing that I want done, and deal with that. Maybe at the Tucson dealership that we bought it from.

Comments

[falena]

As a non-driver I am amazed by the amount of maintenance and faff owning a car involves. We do have one a sa family, but F takes care of it all and I'm super glad. :D

Hope the transmission gets fixed in 4 days as expected and it won't be too expensive.

[thewayne]

Considering the car is 10 years old and has as many miles as it has, it's been very low maintenance.  This is its first major problem, one brake job plus oil changes and a coolant flush.  Pretty normal stuff.  It's not going to be cheap, I just hope it can be fixed and doesn't have to be replaced with a rebuilt!  Shop hourly labor rates this days are around $100 an hour, if not more!

[kraig]

There's a person in town here a couple people who have been on my team with Subarus call the Subaru Whisperer (SW). I gather from them that at least their models (an older WRX and an Outback) can be tricky and there's not a lot of mechanics in town who are happy working on them. They always speak of SW in hushed tones. The WRX eventually collapsed under the weight of age and hard driving and he replaced it with a Stinger, but the Outback's still going strong. As others have said, good mechanics are hard to find, but apparently that goes double for Subarus. For our prior Echo and current Escape/Mustang, the shop we've been using since the Echo came out of warranty in like 2007 has been good, thankfully. The owner's not somebody I prefer to talk to if I can avoid it, but their general manager is very good and personable and the staff all seem competent.

[thewayne]

I can certainly understand, in my limited fashion, the 'hard to work on' angle.  I remember many years back I wanted to replace the plugs on my wife's old Outback.  Went and bought a set of pre-gapped plugs (made sure to check the gap), popped the hood, and paused.  It's a horizontally-opposed engine, and there was absolutely no way I could get a wrench down there to change the plugs!  Ended up returning them.

[murakozi]

I remember back in ancient times, when one could slide under the car to change the oil/filter fairly easily. I gave up on doing that kind of thing long ago, though.

A couple years back, when the thermal control module (I think that's what it was called. Basically, a much more technical and probably better version of the simple lil spring loaded thing that'd let off steam if the car overeheated) failed on my Forester. The dash lit up like a Christmas tree as many of its unrelated systems shut off. Why it made the car shut off Eyesight system, I still can't figure out.

I took it to the dealership. After all, if it was something major, I wanted it done right. Fortunately, the original bumper to bumper warranty had a few months left on it, so the repair was covered. Just to get to that part, the tech said, they had to remove much of the top of the engine. It would've been somewhere around $1600 if I'd had to pay for it.

They gave me an Outback as a loaner car. That one made me glad I'd gotten the Forester when I did. The Outback was a very nice car, but the giant touchscreen and no physical climate control knobs were a major turnoff.

[thewayne]

Yeah, cars are completely sealed up nowdays much beyond an oil change and doing the brakes yourself.

Fortunately there seems to be a 180 when it comes to touchscreens! Many makers are downsizing them and returning to conventional control knobbies! The question will be how long big screens will endure in the used marketplace. We were lucky, our cars seem to have slid in-between the large screen mania.

[murakozi]

I was having my car car serviced on Friday, so I wandered through the showroom. So far, they've all still got the big touch screens with just volume and tuning knobs. I thought I'd read some time back that Subaru was bringing back physical controls.

I only had that loaner Outback for less than a day. Fortunately, the weather was nice, because I really didn't want to try to figure out how to adjust heat or AC without having to look down at the screen.

On the plus side, at least Subaru integrates them into the dashboard well. Some cars it looks like someone just hot glued an ipad to the top of the dash.

[lovelyangel]

Oh, man, I hate car maintenance and repair. Finding good mechanics is like trying to find a good doctor, dentist, or therapist (or good hairdresser... or good home maintenance person). Of course, once you find a good service provider, you stick with them. It's when they retire or go out of business that you are screwed (again).

[thewayne]

I've been wanting to get this noise looked at for a couple of weeks, but Russet was out of town, and I knew that if I had to leave it that it was kind of pointless to even just get it looked at.  So I put it off.  Last week I started looking at Yelp and Google reviews of mechanics in the area, and they were such a horrible mixed bag that I decided to look into Las Cruces.  90 minutes away, but Firestone immediately leapt to the top with very solid reviews, and I've had success with them in the past.  We go to 'Cruces for pretty much all of our medical needs after having fired all of the doctors that we went to in Alamogordo, I guess our car doctors follow the same path.

[warriorsavant]

So you used a tire shop for oil changes. Did you use an oil shop for tire changes?

[thewayne]

Sadly, the oil change shops had much worse reputations when I moved down here.  The landscape has changed a bit.  The basic rule of thumb is that if you need service by a professional in many fields in Alamogordo, go elsewhere.  We've fired every doctor that we've tried to establish a relationship here for varying levels of incompetence or unprofessionalism.

[disneydream06]

It's stuff like all that that makes me think, should I get a horse and buggy?

I had to laugh at the Subaru dealership here, I got a letter in the mail a couple of days ago.
I thought maybe they were writing to ask why I had refused on my work order to have one of their people do my car. Nope they were making an offer for me to trade my 2024 Outback on a 2025 Outback.
Why would I trade in a vehicle that I had for one year and had paid off when I bought it. :o :o :o
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

Because they would low-ball your trade and used cars are really commanding high prices these days.  Yeah, it's all a racket.  It's funny because the Tucson dealership contacted me not too long ago wanting to make me an offer on my '15!  This thing has very little market value, especially with 170k miles on it.  If I get in a serious accident, they'll total it because of the miles.

[disneydream06]

UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There is a reason they have such a bad reputation. :o :o :o
Last year when I was shopping and thinking I would only get a used vehicle, it was scary the crap that was/is out there being sold. :o :o :o
One vehicle I looked at had a cracked windshield and some issues I could see inside without even getting in it. I asked if they planned to fix those things and his response was, If we do, will you buy it?
Well, I would want to test drive it and so forth. When I went back a few days later, it still sat there broken. :o :o :o

[thewayne]

The best buying experience that I ever had was back in 1990.  My credit union had an office thats job was brokering cars for CU members.  I did my research then contacted them, said 'I want a new Mazda 626, white, air conditioning, automatic transmission.'  They called me up a couple of days later and said that all they could find had moon roofs and alloy rims.  The CU set up the loan, I drove out and picked it up.  The car did not wear well, but that was 35 years ago.  Used cars are definitely a crap shoot, both of our current Subarus were dealer service loaners.  Came with the full Subaru warranty.

[disneydream06]

WOW, that sounds like a great service to have. :o

I pray that my Subaru will be my final car. :o

[kaishin108]

Those are crazy issues, I am so sorry!

Once our Hyundai Elantra had 50,000K on it we started taking it to a Point S shop. Not sure if you have those or not. Seems like things are okay so far but now I am thinking for our Subaru, we should just continue on with the dealership. Yikes!

[thewayne]

No, nothing like Point S here.  I've never heard of them.  And the dealership is two hours south in El Paso, and I have a couple of beefs with them!

[silveradept]

That's a saga to deal with, and one that well probably be expensive on the back end, but I'm glad you found someone honest and reputable to handle the front end of it.

[thewayne]

If it's not a relatively simple repair, it will probably come down to replacing it with a rebuilt tranny.  It's likely to be a multiple of a four-digit number regardless.  Unpleasant, but less than buying a new car.